“Don't you see? The things we once loved do not change, only our belief in them... You are left with the only things that any of us have in the end. The things we keep inside of ourselves, that grow out of us, that tell us who we are.”

“Each of us starts out as a watertight vessel. And these things happen—these people leave us, or don't love us, or don't get us, or we don't get them, and we lose and fail and hurt one another. And the vessel starts to crack open in places . . . Once the vessel cracks open, the end becomes inevitable . . . But there is all this time between when the cracks start to open up and when we finally fall apart. And it is only in that time that we can see one another, because we see out of ourselves through our cracks and into others through theirs.”

“The question of what we are can only be answered by ourselves. We each decide what we are by the life choices we make. How we were made, who are parents are, where we are from, the color of our skin, who we choose to love, all those things do not define us. Our actions define us, and will keep defining us until even after death.”

“There are things we never tell anyone. We want to but we can’t. So we write them down. Or we paint them. Or we sing about them. It’s our only option. To remember. To attempt to discover the truth. Sometimes we do it to stay alive. These things, they live inside of us. They are the secrets we stash in our pockets and the weapons we carry like guns across our backs. And in the end we have to decide for ourselves when these things are worth fighting for, and when it’s time to throw in the towel. Sometimes a person has to die in order to live. Deep down, I know you know this. You just can’t seem to do anything about it. I guess it’s a sad fact of life that some of us move on and some of us inevitably stay behind. Only in this case I’m not sure which one of us is doing which. You were right about one thing though. It’s not fate. It’s a choice. And who knows, maybe we’ll meet again someday, somewhere up above all the noise. Until then, when you think of me, try and remember the good stuff. Try and remember the love.”

“Like, each of us starts out as a watertight vessel. And these things happen--these people leave us, or don't love us, or don't get us, or we don't get them, and we lose and fail and hurt one another. And the vessel starts to crack open in places. And I mean, yeah, once the vessel cracks open, the end becomes inevitable... But there is all this time between the cracks start to open up and when we finally fall apart. And it's only in that time that we can see one another because we see out of ourselves through our cracks and into others through theirs......But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out.”

“They tell us that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,but I don't believe that." he said. Then, a moment later, he added: "Oh,the fear is there, all right. It comes to us in many different forms, at different times, and overwhelms us. But the most frightening thing we can do at such times is to turn our backs on it, to close our eyes. For then we take the most precious thing inside us and surrender it to something else. In my case, that something was the wave.”